Server manufacturers sold an estimated 1.22 billion dollars in the June quarter from a year ago, with China accounting for 31 percent of the market and posting 11 percent growth, Gartner Dataquest said.

"The impact of SARS was experienced mainly in the services sector, while other sectors have remained fairly resilient to this," a Gartner press statement said.

"Continuous investment by the government in building the IT (information technology) environment has helped to contain the overall impact on server revenue for China," it added.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which first emerged in southern China in late 2002, ravaged East Asian economies between March and May this year, particularly tourism and related sectors.

Gartner said Hong Kong's server market appeared to be the most affected by SARS, dropping 28.6 percent in the second quarter this year.

India, which was not affected by SARS, by contrast posted the highest growth rate in the quarter as server sales surged 33.2 percent.

"The Indian market has seen significant growth in revenue, especially from the Intel-based servers in the first half of 2003," said Gartner analyst Vinod Nair, adding a shift to mid-range servers contributed to better revenue.

Top vendors IBM and Hewlett-Packard increased their market share in Asia to 35.8 and 31.2 percent respectively. Sun Microsystems' share slipped to 16.4 percent, while Dell raised its share to 4.9 percent in the quarter.

SPACE.WIRE